Pages

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Royal Chateau Amboise, Clos Luce, Abbeye Fontravaud and St Emillion

This is a bit of a long post as I need to do a bit of a catch up so you might want to grab a cuppa.

We've Been a bit busy out dining and trying the local produce ( in a bottle) ..... Lol

Royal chateau Amboise

So this is the royal castle in Amboise, as it stands today, it's only 1/8th it's original size. This is where the Kings and queens of France actually lived , long before the lived in the louvre and Versailles. Those of you that know me well, know that I really like a bit of history, particularly Royal history. So Mary queen of Scots was sent to France as a young child, for her "education" and her safety. Mary

lived in this castle, she married a prince of France and lived here with him, until he died.

The other significant thing about this chateau is that Leonardo da Vinci is buried in the chapel here. Leonardo in his late sixties became a friend of the King of France, and was invited to move to the south of France.

This chateau was really quiet lovely, the rooms well decorated and cared for. The top two photos are from the main reception room, can't you just see ladies and gents in medieval dress milling around in this room, warming themselves near the fire.

Clos Luce

This very small Chateau was the home of Leonardo for the last 6 or so years of his life. It was gifted to him by the King of France, along with a pension.

The bed, is apparently the bed Leonardo died in, when we arrived a cat was enjoying a good snooze curled up on its velvet bedspread. This Chateau was very quant and had some very interesting models, in the grounds and inside of Leonardo s inventions. It was really interesting, he was an extremely clever man. Whilst this was interesting to visit, it was a bit overpriced, entry was more expensive than to any of the other chateau's. There were so many to see, hopefully one day I will return and see the others.

This is a typical house in Amboise, they were just everywhere, I love how the houses are built right onto the street. No room for parking your car though, most of these streets are very narrow, and it was a little nerve wracking driving down the street, definetly wouldn't want our big 4WD here. Amboise looks like something out of a fairytale.

On Monday we packed up our things, and hit the road. On the way was a brief visit to the

Abbaye Fontevraud

This is the last resting place of a couple of characters I have been interested in recent times

Eleanor of Aquitane, Henri II of England and their soon Richard the lion heart. This is the family that begun the Plantagenets, the English royal family before the Tudors.

These are the sarcophagus 's of Eleanor of Aquitane and Henri II, sadly their remains are no longer here, they were removed and destroyed during the French Revolution.

I just like love the cloisters, in the Abbayes. It was really cold the day we were here, and reading the information they were saying that the nuns / sisters had certain activities they had to attend each day. If you were allocated to do sewing, you were very lucky, as the sewing room was the only room in the abbaye that was heated. So I d be keeping warm then. . . . .

Sadly Fontevraud also had a not so peaceful history and from 1804 - 1963 it served as a prison. It is undergoing a lot of work and has a motel, bar and restaurant on site.

After Fontevraud we headed on to St Emillion.

So the funny thing about this was, gadget decided to pick a small little quiet village halfway between Amboise and Lourdes. He picked St Emillion.

As we were driving in I was thinking, wow look at all the vineyards , I think I made a comment along the lines of, this makes pokolbin look small. Well St Emillion we discovered is like Mecca for wine connoisseurs, it is a tiny little village, with steep narrow streets and every second shop was a wine shop. So we decided when in Rome do what the Romans do, we found ourselves a lovely little bar and had a very rustic meal.

I would have loved to have stayed longer, to wander the winding narrow streets. But we are back on the road, heading for Lourdes.

1 comment:

I loved the countryside much more than Paris....it so beautiful....and so different as you move thru different regions. Amboise looks cute....kind of reminds me of the Normandy region. And the history is amazing! I love that the buildings are so old we can't comprehend it living in Australia. We went to this cathedral that took 200 years to build and was finished in 1066.....can't fathom that!